ARGH SORRY THIS CHAPTER WAS A BIT LATE I HAD ALL THE IDEAS BUT COULDN'T GET THE WORDS DOWN!!! Anyways happy reading :))
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Alex
The remaining avengers all stood flabbergasted in the lab as they gaped at the fact that Alex, Tony and Bucky were actually having a group hug — rather than killing each other with poisonous acids, which was what they had been expecting.
Finally, Tony broke out of the hug,
"Right, okay, it's getting weird now. Move over Barnes."
The three of them turned to see their friends watching them in confusion — Alex merely smiled and waved her un-bandaged hand.
"What happened down here then?" Natasha asked, suspiciously raising her eyebrow — affection was most definitely not Tony's forte so there had to be a catch.
Tony shrugged.
"Just your normal bonding hug." He replied nonchalantly.
"Sounded like panicking and shouting a few minutes ago." Nat remarked, crossing her arms. "Spit it out. What happened?"
Tony rolled his eyes dramatically.
"So I started the lesson, teaching like any normal person does, and then Barnes here convinced me to let us do experiments, so I did... and now we're here." He shrugged as though he hadn't missed out the enormous middle chunk of the story.
From across the room, Steve scowled in disbelief, causing Tony to quickly add, "oh yeah, and Alex got burnt by hydrochloric acid on her hand."
The three of them winced at the outbreak of panicked responses.
"ALEX DID WHAT?!"
Quickly Bruce ran over to the little girl, checking the bandage on her hand. He looked up at Tony with disappointment.
"Tony... the most you were meant to use was a pencil and paper..." he sighed after having ensured that Alex's burn was securely wrapped.
"You can blame this man for that." Tony annoyingly flicked Bucky's arm, who flushed slightly.
Steve sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Really, Buck?"
Bucky put his hands up in defense.
"Look I'm just saying, you didn't hear that man try to teach! Jesus he's like a boring old robot — and he's younger than me!" He exclaimed, causing Alex to giggle.
"Watch it, Barnes." Tony snapped.
Natasha clapped her hands together.
"Alright boys, playtime's over. Let's go, you two are coming with me." She gestured for them to follow her out the door, like a disapproving mother.
"Why?"
They both nervously said in unison.
Natasha narrowed her eyes at them evilly.
"I just wanna have a word with you two." She turned and strode out the door with Tony and Bucky trailing miserably behind her, looking like schoolchildren heading to the headmaster's office.
Grinning broadly at the fact that this time it wasn't him being scolding, Clint waved the two of them out the door, sticking his tongue out childishly.
Natasha quickly popped her head back round.
"For that, Clint you can come too." She demanded.
"What?! What did I do?!" He exclaimed.
"You breathed. Come on, let's go." She ordered as Clint also disappointedly filed out the door, already knowing full well that protesting would get him nowhere.
"Well I think it's safe to say they're all being dealt with." Steve said as they hear the fading voice of Natasha hissing at the three of them whilst seemingly dragging them away. "But Bruce, please always be around for Alex's science lessons." Steve requested, turning to look at the scientist.
"You think I hadn't already thought of that?" Bruce said.
Steve nodded in affirmation before turning to Alex, who was already trying to peel her bandage off out of boredom.
"No, no, Alex, you've gotta keep that on." Steve said, kneeling down to ensure her hand stayed enclosed. "You feeling okay now?" He asked her softly.
Alex nodded her head happily.
Steve smiled, ruffling her hair.
"There's my girl."
Alex watched as he stood back up.
"Can I do another lesson now please. I'm bored!"
She begged.
Steve grimaced.
"You were meant to have training with Loki now but with your hand... I think you should rest it for now." He shot a glance at Bruce, who nodded his head.
Loki, from the corner of the room, folded his arms in annoyance.
"Hmph."
"I can do my history lesson with Alex now if she wishes to." Thor offered, his loud voice startling the others.
Alex nodded.
"Yeah, I wanna do that then!"
Steve shrugged,
"Alright then," he nodded to Thor, "go ahead."
Alex quickly ran over to Thor, grasping his hand with her good one, and they walked out the door — she'd already begun babbling away.
Loki, still feeling offended that his lesson had been replaced by his brother, said,
"She's not going to learn anything, you know." He said saltily.
Steve turned to him, frowning.
"Why not?"
Loki smirked.
"My oaf of a brother has far less knowledge and even less ability to teach in comparison to me. Just you wait, he'll trail off topic before he's even explained what the topic is."
And with that, he flamboyantly strode out the room.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Alex
Alex followed Thor into the library, her little feet having to patter along at triple the speed just to try to keep up with the god's enormous strides.
Finally she sat down at a large oak table, surrounded by books on shelves.
Thor sighed,
"Hmm... history they said..." He murmured to himself as he began rummaging through the books. "Midgardian history..."
Alex watched patiently from where she sat, the burning in her hand had dulled to a numb humming now and was nowhere near as unbearably agonising as it had been just fifteen minutes before.
Finally, Thor pulled a large book from the shelf, flicking through it with a scowl on his face. It took him a few minutes of scanning through the pages and giving occasional chuckles before he snapped the book shut, regaining the little girl's attention.
"Nonsense!" He exclaimed, looking at the book as though it had insulted him.
Alex frowned.
"What is?"
"This!" Thor pointed at the book. "All of these puny little mortal wars, you wouldn't want to learn about this, my little one." He said as he pushed the book back into its shelf. Carefully, the god bent down and scooped Alex up into his arms.
"What are we gonna do then?" She asked as Thor began to pace through the aisles of books.
"I'm going to teach you about real history, little one. The real, most important battles and beings in all the nine realms." He said proudly as he moved onto another shelf, still carrying the little girl.
"Like where you're from?" Alex asked curiously.
"Precisely." Thor murmured, still peering through the hundreds of books, bending down, with Alex in one arm, to look at the lower shelves.
"Looking for something?"
Came a cool voice from behind them.
Scowling, Thor whirled around.
"Loki?" He frowned at his brother, who spread his arms with a mischievous grin. "I thought we agreed that this would be my lesson with Alex." The god of thunder said harshly.
Loki pulled an expression of mock-offence.
"Oh, brother, no need to be like that. I merely came to offer you something that may help get you started. I would never try to take control over your lesson, we all know you're far too knowledgeable for me to do such a thing." He said innocently, handing Thor an old book with cursive words written in another language on the cover — a language Alex didn't recognise at all.
Thor took ahold of the book with his free hand.
"Where did you get this?" He asked.
Loki smirked.
"Mother gave it to me many centuries ago, it has everything there is to know about who and what lives in the nine realms."
Thor scowled, having stopped listening.
"Why would mother give it to you?"
Loki shrugged innocently,
"Who knows? Perhaps you weren't academic enough... you'll have to take that up with her." He said with nonchalance.
Thor was about to say something snarky in response, but paused momentarily.
"But... but I'm afraid I won't be needing this... I was asked to be teaching young Alex about Midgard's history, not of our own..."
Loki raised his eyebrow.
"Yes, yes of course you were." He said before striding out the library with a knowing smirk on his face.
Thor watched his brother leave before he turned back to Alex,
"Well I suppose this book shall have to do for now."
He said as he turned and carefully sat the little girl down in an oak chair. "You see, this book," he began, flicking through the pages of his mother's book, "appears to be all about Asgard, which is where I'm from." He said, chuckling as he scanned through the pages of the book.
Alex leaned forward, trying to get a closer look.
"But does it have any pictures?" She asked, beginning to flick through the pages herself.
Suddenly, she stopped herself, slapping her hand down on a page. "Look!" She exclaimed excitedly. "It's you!" She giggled, staring at the slightly deformed illustration of Thor.
Thor's broad grin quickly diminished, being replaced by a deep-set frown as he scowled at the image. "I don't look like that!" He exclaimed in offence, "I look absolutely hideous here, what is this nonsense?!" Scowling, he began skim-reading the description of himself. "What?! 'Overly-confident, brash and incredibly overrated in everything, from his looks to his strength'?! Why, that can't be true. Loki must have tampered with this." The god grumbled in annoyance at the insults, quickly turning the page to an illustration of Loki.
"Ooo look at his funny hat!" Alex exclaimed between little fits of giggles.
Thor took no notice of the image as he read through the description of his brother.
"'Devilishly good-looking' and 'the most intelligent and talented being in all the nine realms'? This is most definitely Loki's doing." Thor's relieved smile returned as he chuckled lightheartedly, simply relieved to know that what had been said about him was only due to the few adjustments made by his brother.
"You see, in my opinion, those facts are completely accurate." Came Loki's smooth voice from behind them.
"And you're back..." Thor grumbled, huffing as he rested his cheek on his fist. He watched as his brother pulled up a chair behind them.
"What?" The god of mischief asked nonchalantly. "I simply thought that if you were going to teach little Alex, it wouldn't be worth the risk to have you potentially feeding her false information."
Thor gestured to the page calling him incredibly overrated in annoyance.
"And this is not false information?" He demanded.
Loki peered over, trying to hide his smirk as he read through the description. Afterwards, he pulled an innocent face, shrugging,
"I see no lies."
"And my nose does not really look like that either!"
Loki furrowed his brow, inspecting his brother's nose.
"Are you quite sure about that?" He asked.
Thor just sighed with a chuckle, shaking his head — he was so used to Loki's antics by now that he no longer allowed himself to be angered by them.
"What else have you put in this book?" He murmured, flicking through the pages.
"Look at this one!" Alex laughed, putting her hand on a brightly coloured page. "It's you as a frog!" She giggled uncontrollably, pointing at the illustration of Thor, indeed, in the form of a frog, but still wielding his trusty Mjlonir.
Loki bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. He put his hands up in surrender.
"Now I can admit to tampering with the previous pages, but I can assure you, I have not touched this one." He said, still trying to stifle his chuckles.
"Yes, I know you haven't. I remember this all too well." Thor said in his deep voice.
Alex frowned.
"What do you mean your remember it?" She asked curiously.
Loki quickly began answering, his face beaming as the happy memory flooded back into his mind.
"Ah, you see, that is not just a mere illustration. One time, when Thor was being a complete oaf, for the hundredth time-"
"I think I'll tell the story, shall I?" Thor interrupted, turning to Alex, who was leaning forward to listen eagerly. "When we were younger, Loki used to enjoy playing tricks on me, and there was this one time that he decided it would be a brilliant idea to turn me into a frog. It was a very traumatic experience for me, yet he still revels in it because unfortunately I'm stuck with an evil demon of a brother. That's it, end of story." He said bluntly.
"Oh, but it was marvellous, wasn't it, brother? Watching you hop along on your tiny little legs to find mother..." Loki chuckled. "You know, I'm quite surprise that Volstagg didn't try to eat you that day." He jested about his brother's greedy friend.
"But... other than people trying to eat you, was it a bit fun being a frog?" Alex asked.
Thor frowned darkly.
"No. It was very much the opposite of fun." He said, remembering the mockery he received for his time as, what everyone liked to call it, 'Frog-Thor'.
"Hmm." Alex said aloud in thought. She turned to Loki. "If you can turn Thor into a frog, can you turn me into an animal..." her eyes lit up, "like a big cat, or... or a squirrel so I can move really quickly and-"
"No!" Thor quickly answered before Loki got a word in. "There will be no turning into animals for you, little one." He smiled at the little girl, who simply pouted, crossing her arms.
"One day, I'll find a way to become a squirrel, you just wait. Then I can jump around from whatever trees I want." She said determinedly.
Loki chuckled lightly,
"I'm sure you will, Princess." He said.
Suddenly, seemingly having already forgotten about her broken dreams of becoming a squirrel, Alex's eyes lit up.
"Can we go get a snack?" She asked hopefully, already feeling her little stomach grumbling.
"Well, it is supposed to be lesson time..." Thor began, trying to retain his role as a responsible teacher.
"But Tony bought us some new pop tarts..." she said, disheartened.
Loki smirked as he watched his brother's face also brighten up.
"Well... in that case, I suppose we can take a little break from the lesson, but then we shall come straight back." He agreed as the three of them stood up.
Smiling, Alex lifted her arms up at Thor, wiggling her fingers, before he gently picked her up, carrying her in his arms as the three of them walked out he door.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Steve
Steve scowled in confusion after having opened the library door in search for Alex, and found it empty.
It had been almost an hour since Thor had taken her for her lesson and they were supposed to be in here.
His mind ticking, Steve carefully shut the heavy doors behind him, thinking of where they could be. Then he remembered — this was Thor he was talking about. Thor and Alex together meant there was only one other place they could be: the kitchen.
Steve purposefully began marching his way down the corridor, heading towards the kitchen; he hoped beyond hope that they were there because he seriously didn't want to be spending the entire day looking for them — and using Jarvis's assistance made his head hurt too much.
Finally he entered the kitchen, shaking his head and chuckling as he found precisely what he had been excepting to see. Thor, Alex and surprisingly Loki, were all huddled in the corner of the kitchen with Alex perched on the counter to try to match the height of everyone else, skittishly jiggling and swinging her legs from where she sat.
"Hey, guys." Steve greeted as he walked up to the three of them, trying to keep a straight face as he watched Thor's face fall sheepishly.
"Steve!" Alex exclaimed as she jumped down and threw herself at the soldier, who bent down hug to little girl.
Steve grinned.
"Hey kiddo, what's got you so excited?" He asked as he stood back up, turning back to the two gods before him. It was only then that he noticed the three empty boxes of pop-tarts on the counter, alongside various bags of sweets.
Thor's sheepish face gave a little guilty smile as he waved awkwardly at Steve.
"Hello." He said bluntly, desperately trying to shuffle the empty boxes behind him.
Steve raised an eyebrow.
"Three boxes? Really?" He asked incredulously.
The two brothers shrugged.
"Alex told us she liked them, we didn't see an issue with it." Loki said, nonchalantly leaning on the counter.
Steve stared at the two of them dumbfounded before pointing both his hands at the little girl beside him, who was currently doing a weird shuffling dance with her legs whilst singing some weird chant under her breath and cackling occasionally.
"Didn't see an issue?!" He exclaimed, trying to contain his laughter as he tried to point out the problem with letting a six year old girl feast on sugary pop-tarts as though he were speaking to two morons — which, at the time, he most probably was.
Thor waved off the comment.
"Ah, she's just a little excited that's all...nothing a little sit-down shan't fix." He said confidently. "Alex, come and sit down over here, little one." The god suggested, patting his hand on the counter, clearly unaware of the lack of obedience skills a sugar-high six year old has.
Alex stopped her weird dancing to look at Thor quizzically before entirely ignoring his request.
"Can I have a bike?" She asked suddenly, in all seriousness.
Thor looked at the little girl, and then at Steve.
"Can she have a bike?"
Steve sighed, rubbing his face with his hand.
"No. No riding bikes, it's a school day, no one has time to buy a bike."
Loki raised his brows.
"If it's your lesson with Alex now, we would have time to buy a bike..." he said in thought.
Steve frowned.
"Nope, no, no. No bikes in the tower, especially not until all this sugar's worn off. No. Bikes." He said sternly.
Loki merely pulled a face in response, but Steve's attention was back on Alex who was now trying to climb the counter and failing miserably.
"Scooter?!" She quickly suggested as she hoisted her foot onto the surface, trying to pull herself up from there.
Steve ran an exasperated hand through his hair before gently prizing Alex off the furniture and putting her back on her feet.
"No, Alex. Not now." He sighed, receiving a pout from the little girl in response before she began to play hopscotch on the tiled kitchen floor.
Once that conversation had been settled, Steve turned back to Thor and Loki and opened his mouth to speak, but was cut short when a strangely-shaped lump jumped onto his back, hanging on for dear life.
"Can we do something now?" Alex asked loudly in his ear, hanging off of Steve's back like a koala.
"Yeah, don't worry," Steve began in a strained voice, whilst trying to gently shake the little girl off his back. "I've set some stuff up in the living room for your art lesson, we'll go in a minute but-" before he was able to finish his sentence, however, Alex quickly leapt to the ground and darted out the room, shouting "race you!" at the top of her lungs.
Steve heaved a deep a sigh.
"Thanks for making my lesson a lot easier, guys." He said with a hint of sarcasm before running off after the little girl.
Thor smiled brightly,
"You're welcome!" He called after him.
Loki turned to look at his brother.
"I think that may have been sarcasm, brother." He explained, brushing the crumbs off his clothes.
Thor frowned dejectedly.
"Oh."
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Steve
As he speedily made his way to the living room, Steve dreaded what he would see — he'd stupidly enough left the paints out and ready for the lesson...
Slightly fearfully, he stepped into the living room and prepared himself for the destruction... but saw nothing. Instead he saw Alex, calming sitting on the sofa, looking down at something.
Steve scowled, that wasn't right. He cautiously made his way over to the sofa, leaning over to see just what she was up to, and it was then that he released his slightly delayed sigh of exasperation.
"Alex... what are you doing?" He pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes — the lesson hadn't even started and it was hard work.
Nonetheless, the mischievous little girl beamed up at him, proudly presenting her masterpiece; before her, lay Clint in a deep sleep, his face now adorned with enormous amounts of multicoloured facial hair, and just random paintings of animals, smudged and messy.
"I think he looks better." She giggled.
Steve tried to suppress a smile. All he could think was, 'at least it's only Clint'.
"Alex, you cant just paint on people's faces..." he tried to reason.
Shrugging, Alex climbed off the sofa before making her way over to where the canvases and paints were, a trail of pigments following behind her.
"Can we start our lesson now?" She asked, as though she hadn't already painted all over Clint.
Steve took one last glance at his friend, thought it would be better for both of them to not wake him up, and strode over.
"Well..." he sighed, "we've lost some time, but I guess we can start now." He smiled after seeming Alex's face light up with excitement. "So take a look around and find something you want to paint, the-" Steve paused as he watched Alex happily grab some paintbrushes lathered in paint, and begin splattering colours all over the fresh canvas. "Alex, no-" He began protesting, before realising that his attempts would most certainly be fruitless.
Chuckling, Steve shook his head, admitting to defeat: there was no way that child was going to learn anything today, not with the amount of energy she had in her. Instead, the super soldier decided to just supervise over her, watching as she grabbed a huge brush and began to extremely messily swipe green paint all across the bottom of the canvas.
"Alex just be careful you don't-" Steve stopped as Alex whipped around at the sound of his voice, splattering paint all over him and the floor. "-get paint everywhere..." he sighed.
Alex giggled sheepishly.
"Oops." Quickly, returning to her painting, now adding splurges of black and white in one spot.
"So, what're you gonna paint then?" Steve asked, tucking his green covered hands into his pockets before suddenly removing them, realising he'd now covered his trousers in green.
But Alex merely lifted a little finger to her lips, grinning.
"It's a secret." She whispered in a sing song-y voice now carefully painting a little poof of white on the soon-to-be masterpiece.
For a while, Steve looked on closely as Alex painted under his watchful eye, desperately trying to prevent himself from intervening whilst she messily got paint all over her hands.
He sighed internally — it could be worse...
The soldier was so caught up in his own thoughts, that he suddenly started when he heard a lazy grunt from behind him.
Great.
Another child to supervise.
Taking one last cautious glance at Alex and being pleasantly satisfied with how well-behaved she was being, Steve momentarily turned his back to pay attention to Clint, who has managed to smudge the paint all over his face whilst groggily rubbing his eyes.
"Argh." Clint groaned, propping himself up on the sofa, causing Steve to cringe at the now fresh handprints on the material. "Why is my face so... sticky?" He yawned, squinting as he tried to become accustomed to the bright room. "Oh, hey Steve." He added, finally noticing his friend's presence.
Steve awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.
"Erm, yeah, about you're sticky face..."
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Alex
Alex remained perfectly obedient all throughout the time Steve was watching over her, but when he turned away to see to Clint, she couldn't help herself.
Giggling, she pulled a large chunk of her hair in front of her so that she could just about see it, and then took ahold of the scarlet red paint.
Taking occasional glances to ensure Steve's back was still turned, she began to smother every inch of m hair in her reach in red paint.
Suddenly, Alex frowned as she tried to reach the back of her head. She pouted in frustration, unable to extend her arms to paint the last few portions of hair... until an idea sprang to mind. Taking one final peek at where Steve was, she threw her head upside down and began very messily lathering the paint all over the bottom of her hair, frequently missing and pouring paint all over her neck.
Nevertheless, she finally accomplished her mission, sweeping the thick, sticky strands of hair out her face before returning to her painting as though nothing had changed.
The little girl grinned cheekily when she finally heard Steve turn around.his
"Hey, Alex, you nearly done with your painting, we need to talk to-" she tried to suppress a laugh when he paused abruptly, taking in a sharp breath before huffing in exasperation. "What have you done to your hair...?" He sighed — he should have known better than to turn away from her, even if it was just for a short amount of time...
Alex only beamed up at him.
"Look! Don't you think I look like Mama Nat now?!" She exclaimed proudly.
Steve remained speechless, gaping at her dripping red hair. Alex watched excitedly as Clint staggered up behind Steve, before guffawing and slapping Steve on the back.
"Well done! Your track record for being the most 'responsible' parent?" He drew a line across his throat, laughing. "It's nonexistent now, pal." He teased, only making Steve sigh more.
Momentarily, Alex paused in thought, before spinning round to her painting, splashing the two of them in red paint as she did so.
"And I made this for you, 'cause I painted your face." She offered, handing Clint her canvas, which was now also adorned with splashes of red paint. "It's a farm, like the one you live on!"
Clint smiled, looking down at the messy painting of cows, pigs and sheep, with, of course, the classic yellow sun in the corner. "Laura has got to see this." He murmured happily.
"So do you like it or love it!" Alex demanded, staring up at him intensely.
"I gotta say, it's worth having paint all over my face." He chuckled, finally tearing his eyes away from the painting.
The moment was quickly interrupted, however, by a flabbergasted Steve.
"But I still don't get why you had to paint your hair..." He said, still confused about what sort of logic, if any, went through that little girl's head.
"To look like Mama Nat!" She exclaimed a little more forcefully, as though her intention was entirely obvious. "That way I can tell Clint off all the time!"
"Hey! I thought we were frien-" Clint began protesting before he stopped himself, pulling a face at the arrival of a certain red-head.
"What about Mama Nat?" Natasha asked, leaning in the doorway, a sly smirk on her face.
Steve heaved his most enormous sigh yet, rubbing a hand over his face.
"Oh, great."
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
WOOOOO finished the chapter!!!!!
Sorry I couldn't quite get this one out in time, but never fear for I have plenty of ideas for the next couple — but feel free to give suggestions!!
On a side note, just now I had a mini heart attack because I opened edit on my Wattpad draft of this story which is where I write before I publish, AND EVERYTHING WAS GONE!!!
I swear I was terrified, but I got it back so yay.
Also credits to my lovely reader @Charlz102 for giving me the idea for Alex to have a painting lesson and for a part of the next chapter ;)
I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!!! :)
- Kiana <3
(Word count: 4706)